I like the sounds that I'm hearing
I like the way that you're dressed
I feel the fever nearing
put out my cgarette

Cause I don't want to end up alone
And this world has never been my home
We borrow,
be breathe,
we take our departure


There will be days but not often
and seasons and miles in between
when the weight of a single drop of water
will bring you to your knees

And you won't want to end up alone
you'll say oh god this is not my home
and no reply will you be given


The slightest and simplest measure
the soft word or two
can being such a change to the weather
can settle the brimming brew

Oh you all seem to be so alone
you pour your lifeblood into your homes
and flowers
and gravestones
line your roadways


I like this evening air
I like this mountain crest
I wonder if I've got it backwards
I wonder if this isn't best

Oh we are none of us alone
hear these bells,
see these ghosts,
they rise like the morning mist off your garden.

The Soft Word

Wild boys with their hair hang low
Rolling down from their porches oh
and moving fast
don't believe in slow
said
Don't make plans for coming home, well


Take your pills makes your long escape
pull me out , push me through the gate
I saw the sun come up like a rolling flame
felt your arms, heard you call my name

Everyone's tried to die
at least once, babe, it,
don't make you special but it
don't make you crazy


Everyone's thought of dying
at least once babe it,

don't make you special but it
don't make you crazy


Wild girls
on their motorbikes
cut like knives through the country nights
Light a candle under the old stone bridge
that's where that wild girl said she'd like to live but

Everyone's tried to die
at least once love, it

don't make you special, no it,
don't make you nothing

Everyone's thought of dying
at least once, dear, it
don't make you anyplace but right here and


Oh their folks
lighting up their porch lights
shout and call into the wild night
Maybe even step down to the old curved road
but their
wild boys and girls aren't coming home well


I thought of you today
it made me feel strange
I swear I felt the last two years slip away

I thought of you and I,
I curled up and cried
girl on the screen looked like you and I nearly died


Special

Grown up men on a playground
ties dragging in the dirt
cross the hot land for water
cross your best friend for a girl

Grown up women on swingsets
shuddering off their shirts
sink the quicksilver for a bit of cash
sink the gold until it hurts


Playgrounders stumbling
I'm still mumbling
Oh, but you can't hear the words

Just like a child but oh
less mild
and now
at the time
there's murder

Ah,
little boy
I'm a lie
I'm a girl
for all you want
in line with shadows


Ah,
little one
little time
little loss 
if we find
that we're
not mad anymore


I'll not apologize
I've had my day in jail
I've tried your hard time
lullabies
and they just made me wail

grown fast into what I knew
I could be at my worst
see the playground
where I last felt sound
where I tore the corner of my skirt


Playgrounders stumbling
I'm still mumbling
Oh, but you can't hear the words

Just like a child but oh
less mild
and now
at the time
there's murder

Ah,
little boy
I'm a lie
I'm a girl
for all you want
in line with shadows


Ah,
little one
little time
little loss 
if we find
that we're
not mad anymore

Playground

You were raised on manners
and that matters, dear

You were diagramed
and delicately dreary

But the rules don't keep 
once you leave you door

I don't want you
to be pretty anymore


Hit them back hard like I told you dear
show a little teeth
Put a little shoulder into it
go on show it to me
and if they tell you that you're ugly
send them my way
and I'll show them the scars
that you left
when you were so dear to me


Holy water
holy god
holy sin
holy blood

Cover the door of your home
but you've gotta step out

And when you do I can tell you now
it's only you who's gonna look after
you anyhow

I don't want you to be pretty
I don't want you to be proud


Hit them back hard like I told you dear
show a little teeth
Put a little shoulder into it
go on show it to me
and if they tell you that you're ugly
send them my way
and I'll show them the scars
that you left
when you were so dear to me

Hard Like I Told You

Sure enough you're 
part of the dirt
Air is part of the ocean
Love is part of hurt


Ring out the bell's now
Oh you know the song
of the church isn't lying

We are so worried for death
even though we don't know
a thing about dying



Oh how I care for you
Oh how I have for so many years
Oh but I can be so careless with things that I love
letting you down is my greatest fear



I don't know how else
To love you

But this isn't working
I know, I know, and true


Ring out the bells for the funeral
The burial of us, joined
And when a thing really passes
it doesn't hurt
it doesn't hurt.

Oh how I care for you
Oh how I have for so many years
Oh but I can be so careless with things that I love
letting you down is my greatest fear


I'm doing it wrong
I'm doing it wrong
I'm doing it wrong

But I don't know how else to love you

You've changed so much
you've changed so much

I don't know how to love you
when you've changed so much

I've changed so little
It's still me

I'm not saying I ever knew in the first place

But I sure don't know

lately.


I've changed so much and so
I think you should know
I'm older
Than when
I cut you down


I sweat and swallow while she feeds me 
the bible through a bottle
and oh, I take my medicine any way that it comes
pour it in, pour it in


I lost my heart
to my political body, lover
to my political mind


I lost my heart
to my political body, lover
to my political mind
I've changed so much
so much


I knew a little boy once
he had a fear of fear

And the parts don't add up to a whole
And the parts don't add up to a whole


None of it adds up
none of it adds up

I don't add up

to a whole

Ring The Bells - I've Changed - Parts

Toon Squad

And from the moment the first sip hits your lips
you're gonna think of me
And when they aren't what it says on the door or the card
yeah,
you will remember and see
that though I never tried hard 

I still gave the blood
gave the time and an ocean
of my thoughts and memories
I left them there for you to
sink into, quietly
to hold on to the fever
once the heat's been reprieved


Such an odd girl, so alone
apart from all the others
Stabbing at the stars
Filtering
the words she reads right
into her heart



Five o'clock on easter morning 
I'd been kicked out of all the bars
had me a real bad trip with an immigrant girl
whose rings left stratches on my guitar.

So I wandered out to the little house
where you and I used to stay

Broke through the window and drank what I found

Sat on the porch and waited to say:


"Keep me safe, keep me strange

I'll keep you safe, I'll keep you strange


Keep me safe, keep me in your sight
I'll keep you strange
all day, all night"

Keep me Safe, Keep Me Strange

It was Autumn when you told me I should get it right

I wished that you had known me when I was young

Your face is pale and drifting like a paper kite

Autumn has a way of making all our thoughts so light



She said she's sinking with the sun, lately, from the start

I saw the myth of sad art

Steal another darling little heart


So our kids can grow up to be confused like you

I wish that I had known you when you were new

A year or three can make a change that we won't like

A track we chose, a flame that we won't light


She said she's sinking with the sun, lately, from the start

I saw the myth of sad art

Steal another darling little heart

The Myth of Sad Art

Every night when I am in my bed
I beg and beg and I beg and beg
For art to fill your silent head
Art without reason or reprieve


And as I tumble towards sleep
I think of your sweater on my sheets
I think of tiny little leaves
And all the litte things that please me

*****

And if the fever doesn't take me,
I hope that you do
If the fever doesn't take me,
I hope you do

*****

It's morning and I am a little bee
I flit from flower to flower in need
I am a snake and I miss the riverbank
Oh I miss the water so dearly

I count to ten drag steel over me
When throats are dry it is blood that sings
Hard like I told you but that's not what I mean
Not every art deserves a venue....

And if the fever doesn't take me,
I hope that you do
If the fever doesn't take me,
I hope you do


And if the fever doesn't take me,
I hope that you do
If the fever doesn't take me,
I hope you do

Little Bee

Gabriel

Don't you believe me

Darling won't you receive me

If I come to call upon you?


Gabriel

Everyone's a liar

I've got honour

Here inside me

You've got to help me pull it through




All I want, all I see, 
it's not out of the ordinary
Just want what people want
want you to want me
Just want you to lose your mind for mind for me
Yeah lose your goddamned mind for me
Come on and make it be


All I want is the same things as anyone
A little something to feel nice
Yeah I'll try andything once
anything once, anything once
And the pretty ones twice



Gabriel

Lower your guard

I'm not so hard to figure out


Gabriel


Everyone's a fool

Let's leave this place to the youth

We're of another time



All I want, all I see, 
it's not out of the ordinary
want you to want me
Just want you to lose your mind for mind for me
Yeah lose your goddamned mind for me
Come on and make it sing


All I want is the same things as anyone
A little something to feel nice
Yeah I'll try andything once
anything once, anything once
And the pretty ones twice


Gabriel

Oh,

It's gonna be hard

it's gonna be awful

it's gonna be violent

it's gonna get wet



It's gonna be bloody

It's gonna be lonely

There are things that you'll regret



Oh, but later in the light of the morning
You'll be happy just to be anything

It's like coming home when you find that calm



Call your mother, 

Call your priest

Call a lover

Call a friend

There's no shame in how much we all depend



Oh, you're gonna bleed

You're gonna hurt

You're gonna cry yourself to sleep

You'll be embarassed about what you feel

You won't tell your worst enemy



Oh, but later in the dark of the evening,

You'll take a walk in the cool grass

You'll think about the weight of time

How time passes

And all of us, too


Call your mother, 

Call your priest

Call a lover

Call a friend

There's no shame in how much we all depend


It All Depends

Don't go

not just yet


Take your jacket off


I've just put my running shoes on





A slow eye

They tell me I was born with it


So don't get nervous, sweetheart

If it watches you




Don't go

I've just preapred a meal for us


If it tastes familiar

Let your playful mind roam

To the red, wet socks in my closet



Slow hands, careful and complete:

Required for separating bone from meat

And skin from tendon

And heart from mind




Nighttime decisions


Bleed red like wine

Where have we been for all this time

You touched me and I touched you back just fine

Neither of us made a difference that time


Nightime decisions bleed red like wine

I thought that you could be all mine


Sadder still I thought that I could be all yours

Slow eyes

And a slow hearse

My hands


Stuck in your purse

Don't look for your money in the morning, love


"Sleep, slow eyes, sleep..."






Don't go

You sweet-skinned little queen


Eyeing all your provinces


And wondering at the machine


And I just put my work gloves on



So don't go


Stay here and be clean

An apron and a bucket

full of Christmas, red and green

The parts that a woman leaves



The parts that a man seeps

When his body can no longer scream

I lost my way

I am the machine



So don't go

not til I have made myself presentable

For the outdoor world.





Nighttime decisions


Bleed red like wine

Where have we been for all this time

You touched me and I touched you back just fine

Neither of us made a difference that time


Nightime decisions bleed red like wine

I thought that you could be all mine


Sadder still I thought that I could be all yours

Slow eyes

And a slow hearse

My hands


Stuck in your purse

Don't look for your money in the morning, love


"Sleep, slow eyes, sleep..."

Waking

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